


Merry Little Christmas

by hellostarlight20



Series: Shall We Dance [12]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Christmas, F/M, Family Christmas, Happy Ending, Romance, futuristic Christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:22:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9112531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellostarlight20/pseuds/hellostarlight20
Summary: The Doctor and Rose are celebrating Christmas with Jackie and the family in the future, but not all is happy and bright...or is it?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Angst. Angsty Christmas set in the future. Angsty Christmas set in the future with a happy ending. I promise.Thank you to the ever-fabulous [ MrsBertucci](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsbertucci/pseuds/mrsbertucci) for the beta!

Rose looked around the little estate flat she grew up in, centuries ago now.

In Jackie’s timeline, once a week, she and the Doctor arrived promptly at half one for Sunday dinner; most times Jack visited with them, sometimes other companions did like Donna or Bill. She and mum got on fantastically and Rose knew Jackie missed the other woman.

For years, Mickey and Martha, and their family, arrived promptly at three for dessert and gossip, along with the latest happenings at UNIT. They had retired, sorta. As much, Rose supposed, as any of them ever retired once they knew about aliens.

Still, they kept their security clearances active and helped out wherever possible. But their children and grandchildren had taken over keeping Earth safe.

Rose picked up a photo from this last summer with all of them gathered around Mickey and Martha’s Hampshire home. Their retirement home, though they all used the large manor house—it’d become the family’s not just Mickey and Martha’s.

They gathered around Jackie who sat in her lawn chair looking like queen of the mountain. Rose and the Doctor on one side, Mickey and Martha on the other, Jack right behind Jackie, and the Smith kids and grandkids scattered around. She ran her fingers over the picture and smiled. Despite the time she lived compared to everyone else, they never missed a gathering.

That was what family was all about.

Sighing, she looked closer at her and the Doctor. He smiled for the camera; despite his arm around her shoulders, he didn’t look at her. As much as she tried to tell herself that was okay, that he didn’t always have to look at her for a picture, it hurt.

Because he always did. Always.

Every picture of the two of them, even their formal wedding photos Jackie insisted on, had the Doctor looking at her. Smiling down at her. Eyes only for her.

She sniffed and set the photo back on the table. Shaking her head, Rose turned back to the living room and tried to put those thoughts in the box in the back of her mind. She’d become so very good at that, hiding her emotions, hiding her feelings from the Doctor. From everyone.

Christmas music drifted from the new sound system Jackie insisted she didn’t want but they got for her anyway. It was just she and the Doctor, and Jackie, in the flat. Jack ran out to pick up the rolls Jackie had forgotten and it was too early for the rest of the family to descend.

Decorated for Christmas, the living room looked as festive as ever; traditional London decorations dotted the flat along with several snow globes from various worlds and times.

Rose picked up a globe from 28th century Mumbai (the future city-state not the current city (or the planet)) and shook it. A happy tuned filled the room, for the moment drowning out the Christmas songs in the background. She grinned and set it back on the shelf with its mates. Jackie hadn’t collected snow globes for years, she decided she had enough and didn’t need any more cluttering up the place.

“I always liked that one,” her mum said as she slowly made her way from the kitchen to the living room. Jackie’s cane steadily tapped along the floor, each tap a slice to Rose’s heart.

“You liked the song, I remember.” Rose waited for her mother to reach her—Jackie insisted she didn’t need help walking around her own bloody flat, thank you—then helped her sit in her favorite chair.

The Doctor had built it for her when it was clear Jackie’s hip arthritis made it a struggle to stand. One of the many little things he’d done for her mum over the years. Rose lifted her gaze to find her husband and bond mate.

Banished to kitchen duty, he stood, scowling, over the asparagus and potatoes. They'd argued recently. Again. Over a stupid comment the Doctor made and his flirting, and Rose’s jealousy. Of course they made up, but it stung, his actions, his words. Not that her actions or words made it any better, but—

They argued a lot these days. The last couple years in their timeline it seemed they always argued. Held hands less, made love less, ignored each other more. Rose didn’t know how to breach the gulf between them. Not that she tried all that hard. Not that the Doctor had, either.

“Martha and them are coming for dinner, too.” Jackie sighed and settled a little more comfortably in her recliner. “Gonna be a full house here.” She looked around the place. “Not sure where we’ll put everyone.”

Rose bit back the caustic reply on the tip of her tongue. It was an old argument—she had offered to buy Jackie a larger flat in a nicer part of the city or even a small house in the suburbs, Chiswick near Donna (but not Sylvia) or North London by Francine. Jackie had balked at the idea and they argued. Rose had eventually dropped it, even when it was clear Jackie needed a place with fewer stairs. Or at least a working lift.

“It’s Christmas,” Rose said instead. “We’ll manage.”

She had a feeling this would be her last Christmas with her mum. She didn’t need to see timelines like the Doctor or land in the future to know it. Jackie turned 92 this year. Her mind remained as sharp as ever, though her hearing was going and, of course, her arthritis. She kept busy, but Rose saw the age in her. She breathed heavier, moved slower even than earlier in the year.

Swallowing tears, she curled up on the sofa and let Jackie’s gossip wash over her. All her old friends were gone by now, Jackie Tyler outlived them all. But she kept up with the estate gossip, making sure nothing untoward (read: alien) happened and keeping everyone in a five-flat radius in check.

“I’ve left the flat to Mickey.”

Rose blinked at the sudden change in subject. “What?”

“Mickey,” Jackie repeated as if Rose was the one hard of hearing. “Didn’t think you wanted it, not with the TARDIS.” Her lips pursed. “Left what I have to Mickey and his brood.”

Rose smiled, though her throat closed up. “I’m sure he’ll like that.” She swallowed hard. “What brought this on?”

Jackie snorted. “Not getting any younger am I! And I don’t care what you tell me about fancy alien remedies, Rose Tyler, you can’t fool me.” Behind her glasses, her eyes narrowed in on Rose, who flinched. “Is that why you never had any children of your own?”

“You can’t tell me you miss being a gran, not with Mickey and Martha’s three kids and their children.”

Since Mickey had no living family, or none he talked to, Jackie had become Gran to his kids, Rose Aunt Rose, and even the Doctor and Jack had become uncles.

“Rose.”

Rose sighed and looked to the kitchen again. The Doctor closed himself off, shielded himself from her as surely as she had from him. It hurt, even as she kept her own distance.

“I made the trade,” she whispered. “At the time I guess I thought it was worth it. Longer life with the Doctor, but no children.”

“And now?” Jackie’s voice softened, understanding threaded through the demanding question.

“We’re so distant, Mum. Ever since—” ever since he almost regenerated two years ago now—“I thought it was just time. We spend all our time together, rarely a day without each other.”

“All couples fight, Rose.” Jackie leaned across and took her hand, squeezing.

She nodded. “It’s not that. If it was only that, I’d be okay. It’s—it’s like he doesn’t want to be with me anymore.” And it all rushed out, the emotion she held back for so long, not even sharing with Jack her deepest fears. “Like he doesn’t even try. I can’t feel him, he’s closed himself off and whenever I try—tried—to bring it up, he just…shut down.”

Rose sucked in a breath even as she kept her emotions licked tight from the Doctor. “Maybe I didn’t see everything when I opened the Heart of the TARDIS. Maybe I only saw what I wanted to see. Maybe instead of reality, all I saw was a few hundred years with him and thought that was enough.”

Jackie snorted. “Thought I raised you better than that.”

Rose looked at her mum and swiped her fingers beneath her eyes, staving off tears for another day. Or trying to. “What do you mean?”

“That man loves you to pieces,” Jackie insisted. “Last few months you’ve been more distant, I can tell, but the way he looks at you.” She shook her head and sighed. “I still remember when Pete looked at me like that.”

“Mum.” Rose closed her mouth. She had nothing to say, didn’t know what to say or how to react. Her heart beat harder, faster, a fluttering in her chest. “It seems like things changed. It’s different now. We’re not—not as close.”

“How long has it been, Rose?” Jackie asked seriously. Rose cursed—she hadn’t meant that slip about ‘few hundred years’. They tried so hard to keep her actual age from her mum. “Really, don’t lie to me, not now. How long has it been for you since you ran off with that daft alien?”

Rose couldn’t even summon a laugh at her mum’s typical use of ‘daft alien’ when it came to the Doctor. “Six-hundred fifteen years, give or take a month.”

Jackie only nodded. “Trust me when I say he looks at you the same as he did when you returned after opening the TARDIS’s Heart.” She held up her hand though any reply Rose might’ve had dried in the face of Jackie’s certainty. “And you look at him the same, too. As if you’re nineteen again and he’s the only thing that matters.”

“I miss him, Mum. We’re not the same these last—I don’t know.” Rose sighed tiredly. “Years, months, I don’t know.”

“It’s Christmas, Rose.” Jackie stood just as Jack’s merry greeting preceded him into the flat. “Maybe you need to use the holiday for a miracle of your own.”

Rose nodded though didn’t see how. It wasn’t like they hadn’t had all that time, those years, to talk about it. They just…hadn’t. She nodded to Jack as he set the rolls on the table but didn’t really look at her closest friend. Jack nodded and moved to sit beside Jackie.

She wandered into the kitchen where the Doctor fiddled with the telly in there with one hand and stirred the sautéing asparagus with the other. Still as handsome as when they met, if a little greyer. A few more lines bracketed his mouth, crinkled at his eyes when he smiled.

When was the last time he'd smiled? At her?

“Jackie all right?” the Doctor asked, not looking from the telly.

“I miss you.” The words blurted out before she realized it.

He turned sharply, telly and vegetables forgotten. Arms folded across his chest, his stormy gaze met hers and all Rose wanted was to run into his arms as if she really were nineteen again and the universe lay before them, nothing but theirs.

“Thalia meant nothing you know that, Rose?” He asked, so serious and yet so hopeful. “She was nice and funny and we—we barely talked since—well since the battle on Space Station Zeta.” He dropped his arms only to fist his hands at his sides. They immediately folded over his chest again, such a typical, and beloved, stance her heart ached. “It was nice to have someone who understood what I was saying, who laughed at my jokes. Who looked at me.”

“I know.” She wasn’t entirely innocent in what happened between them. “Same with Ke’lan. He—he looked at me the way you used to.”

The Doctor closed the distance between them in a flash, hands tight on her shoulders and looking so fiercely at her, Rose’s heart tumbled. “Why did you pull back, Rose?”

He didn’t mean this latest fight and Rose knew it. She chewed her lip and curled her fingers into his arms. “You almost died. You were seconds, _seconds_ , from regenerating and after—” she shook her head.

Even now, two years later, she saw it so clearly. It still shook her, froze her blood, terrified her. “Then you laughed it off as if dying wasn’t a big deal. I thought—I thought we worked through all that, I thought you wanted to live. It made—I thought you didn’t care anymore. That if—even with me there, it changed nothing. Or maybe you hoped I would leave if you regenerated and you were sorry you hadn’t.”

His eyes darkened and his fingers dug into her shoulders. “Even if I regenerated, I’d always love you. No matter the body, no matter the face, that, my love, will never change. My hearts will always belong to you.”

Rose choked out a sob. The fingers of one hand brushed her pendant, the one he gave her when they telepathically bonded so many centuries ago now. She never took it off, hadn’t taken her wedding ring off either no matter how often she thought about it.

She just couldn’t and every day looked at the Doctor’s hand to see if he still wore his. He did. Always.

“You haven’t said that in a while.”

The Doctor tenderly brushed his fingers down her cheek. “You haven’t either. I was afraid you didn’t want to hear it anymore.” He swallowed. “I was afraid you didn’t love me anymore.”

She rested her head on his chest and held him tight. Afraid if she let go, he’d vanish as he had so many times in her dreams. Rose heard the front door open and Mickey and Martha walk in, their children and grandchildren loudly following behind them. Rose did not let go.

“I love you, Doctor,” she whispered and tried not to cry. “I love you as much now as I did when I changed for you. More than, so much more than before.”

“Rose, you’re the only thing that keeps me sane.” His lips brushed the top of her head, his fingertips a butterfly’s touch along her temples. Even though they hadn’t needed skin-on-skin contact to speak telepathically for centuries, the simple touch opened her as if it were their first time.

“I didn’t want to regenerate.” He stopped but Rose managed to wait patiently, even if she wanted to pull the words from him. This was the only explanation he offered since he nearly died. “Six hundred years is a long time for me to have a single body. I ran through them so fast…most of them.”

He meant the body before this one, the man he was during the Time War. That body he'd had for eons, it was so hard to calculate time in a Time Lock. Rose tightened her hands on him and held as tightly as he allowed.

Slowly, a piece of her barrier at a time, she lowered her walls and let her love flow through to him.

“If you weren’t in my life, I think I’d have regenerated long before now. Possibly gone through all my regenerations and not have cared. You make me live, Rose.” He offered a half smile, and his eyes softened. “You keep me alive.”

Oh. She sucked in a breath but still found no words. Rose opened her mouth but no sound emerged. 

“I just wanted you safe. Don’t you know I’d do anything—everything—to keep you safe?”

“Then why did you pull back, Doctor?”

He grimaced but pressed his lips to her forehead again and opened himself to her fully for the first time in far, far too long. “Our time together, centuries, it’s a long time. A human isn’t meant to live that long, even if you managed to keep your social contacts. When we fought, you pulled back and I thought—it hurt so much, not knowing if you wanted to leave.”

“I didn’t,” she said quickly. “I thought about it,” Rose amended in the interest of honesty, “but I didn’t. I never did, I don’t, I can’t—you mean everything to me.”

Kissing her deeply, he backed her up to the counter and let all his love and longing flow through their bond. It was a little rusty from disuse, but the feeling of him ‘speaking’ to her so intimately tingled through Rose until she really was crying.

“Don’t leave me,” the Doctor begged. “Please don’t, love.”

“Don’t you leave me,” she countered. “I don’t want to feel like this ever again—not in another six hundred years or whatever your next body brings.”

“I love you, Rose Tyler. Forever.”

 ********  
Jackie watched her daughter and son-in-law sway to the Christmas music. Everyone had gone home with the promise to see them again for Christmas dinner at Mickey and Martha’s house. Jack handed her a cup of tea, made perfectly—she'd had years, after all, to teach him—and pulled up a pair of dining room chairs.

“Are they happy, Jack?” She turned to look at the man she considered her son, even if she hadn’t given birth to him. “Is my Rose happy?”

“Jackie, even when they fight, I’ve never seen either of them happier.” He paused while Judy Garland crooned about _Next year all our troubles will be miles away…_

“I wanted her to have a family.” Jackie sighed and sipped her tea. “Children and grandchildren and—earlier, earlier she said she couldn’t.”

“Having her own children doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a family, Jackie.” Jack wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she leaned her head on his arm. “Rose and the Doctor have the largest family in the universe.” Jack kissed her temple and Jackie smiled. “Don’t worry about her. You raised a strong, compassionate woman.”

“I just want her to be happy,” Jackie insisted. Rose and the Doctor continued to dance as if no one else mattered, certainly not that she and Jack watched them. Judy continued to croon, _Have yourself a merry little Christmas…_ “He makes her happy.”

“He does,” Jack agreed.

“Six centuries, eh?” Jackie side-eyed him and he floundered for a moment. “Rose told me earlier. Long time to stay with the same man.” She returned her head to his arm and sipped her tea again. “I’m glad they found each other.”

“They are, too, Jackie. I promise you they’re happy even when they fight. They don’t want to be without the other.”

“Happy Christmas, Jack.”

“Happy Christmas, Jackie.”

Rose looked up at her Doctor and smile. _I’ll love you always, she promised. Even when you do someday regenerate. I’ll always love you._

The Doctor pressed his lips to her forehead and rested his cheek atop her head. _Nothing in this universe is as precious as you are to me, Rose. I’ll love you forever._


End file.
